Very early on in my career as a journalist, I discovered the value of making friends with the boss’s secretary and the switchboard operator. That is the grail along which you will have your calls put through and the appointment book opened. The same principle can hold true when trying to bring your research to the attention of policymakers.

And there is quite a lot more to the concept of “policy” than laws passed by national governments—research communicators can substantially increase their strike rate if they cast the net wider and smarter in their attempts to bring research to the attention of change makers. Policy doesn’t always mean “legislation”, Head of the Evidence-Informed Policy Making Programme at INASP Dr Kirsty Newman recently told Future Health Systems Uganda Communications Officer Kakaire Ayub Kirunda at an International Conference on Evidence-informed Policymaking in Nigeria.

She also pointed out that policymaking will never become evidence-based unless the public (and policymakers) learned how to understand, evaluate and use research.

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